


Are You Hungry Yet?

by Deuterosis



Category: World Trigger (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, Pulp Science Fiction, Were-Creatures, Werewolf Reveal, Werewolves, werewolfism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28328010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deuterosis/pseuds/Deuterosis
Summary: In addition to Neighbors, Mikado City suddenly has a new unpleasant presence.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7
Collections: Banned Banned Together Bingo 2020, Banned Together Bingo 2020, fucking superb you funky little dadaist





	Are You Hungry Yet?

**Author's Note:**

> This will feel like it _should_ be before Round 8, but because the timeline of the Rank Wars is so incredibly compressed that it took me by surprise when I double-checked, I moved the placement to last year to get more breathing room. This seemed to be a better solution than trying to shoehorn in an entire wolf quest in the short amount of time that Kusakabe and Katagiri Squads had returned.
> 
> Because the source of this prompt, Werewolfism, was the Comics Code, I tried to give it a pulpiness.

The people of Mikado City don't know to be afraid.

Only those in Border.

It all started when Kako Squad found a dead deer just inside the Forbidden Zone. And it continued when, well, that sort of thing just kept happening.

Because the deer only appeared around the full moon, several agents were quick to jump to the most obvious conclusion: A werewolf in our midst.

I, Yuitsuka Karin, have taken it upon myself to sniff out the lycanthrope.

“Why are you so worried about it, Karin?”

Momozono agreed with Katagiri that this was probably nothing. “Maybe it's just a puma that wandered down from the mountains.”

How, exactly, was a puma wandering down from the mountains nothing? “I thought you'd also think it's strange how people are just ignoring this. Even if it's just a wild animal, it could be dangerous to the people.”

“But animal control isn't Border's job.”

“And Jin would probably get involved if it was going to be _that_ dangerous.”

“True....”

As Ichijo and Amakura considered my list of suspects, Katagiri and Momozono joined them. Everyone began to poke holes in the logic.

“Oki doesn't only disappear during full moons or at night.”

“If it were Kage, I don't think this would be so recent.”

They weren't wrong.

“Why do you think it's somebody in Border?”

“Because all of the killings--”

“‘Killings’, woah.”

“-happened deep in the Forbidden Zone. Why would a cougar or a deer walk through a populated area to go where there's no food?”

“A bear, then.”

“Not enough damage for a bear. And have you heard of any bear sightings recently?”

We could have discussed this for hours, but never gotten anywhere. I understood why my squadmates doubted the existence of a werewolf; even to me, it sounded ridiculous. But too much about these killings was not adding up to a normal animal.

As I said, why would a dead deer end up deep within the Forbidden Zone without a blood trail -- unless it were chased all the way down from the edge of the city inward?

* * *

With only vague speculation on my side and no leads, I soon pushed my search into the back of my mind. Stakeouts of my suspects during the full moon had turned up nothing substantial, and only kicked off rumors that I was turning into a stalker.

At the moment, I had a bigger, timely issue; my turn had come again to commentate a Rank War, and one of my choices of co-commentator could be found nowhere. Inukai was typically free at times when his Squad wasn't themselves in a Rank War, but he wouldn't answer my calls, and he wasn't at his house. No one had seen him at HQ for a few hours.

I tried next Hiyami. She opened up the Ninomiya Squad strategy room for me, yet Inukai was still effectively nonexistent. Ninomiya himself insisted on tagging along; their Attacker Tsuji wasn't present, and I didn't expect him to be.

On seeing the strategy room empty of his teammate, Ninomiya tried to contact Inukai himself. The Gunner didn't even pick up for his captain, as the captain soon remarked: “He's not answering his phone again.”

“‘Again’?”

“This would be the third time in as many nights. What business is he up to that's so important? A woman?”

Hiyami said “There's something else unusual.” She'd seated herself at her Operating station, and waved us over. Over her shoulder, we could see the map of the Forbidden Zone, and the locations of agents on patrol. One Trigger reading stood out, being further inward and away from any others.

“Inukai isn't that far from HQ. Usually when this happens, he's been at home. Or, at least, his Trigger is.”

It certainly explained why watching for strange movements on my own time turned up nothing.

The Forbidden Zone is more than two miles in diameter, and for any one person to find the source of the deer killings as one took place wasn't likely. But with Hiyami's aid I had a lock on my new, prime suspect. (Inukai?? He's been acting no differently from normal.) It seemed like unbelievable fortune until I'd made it to the ruins of a small convenience store, and my blood, if I'd stayed in my real body, would have run cold.

I could hear him before I could see him: The wet snapping of meat as it's forcefully torn, and the smacking squish of someone chewing it in open-mouthed snaps. The stacatto bites beat on the empty air, vanishing as fast as they appeared - echoing so broadly as to be impossible to pinpoint for normal ears. One would almost think one's mind was inventing them, if they didn't keep happening so evenly.

The werewolf was bent over the collapsed deer in the parking lot, dressed humanly in black slacks and a bloody white shirt covered in stains both young and old, as if he'd become accustomed to his moonsickness and set aside an outfit for it.

I'd been expecting to see a blond wolf or a beastman - but when he turned his head at my presence he certainly looked like a wolf glaring out through a man's body. The brown eyes with piercing pupils. The inhuman shrewdness, evaluating the intruder.

“...Inukai!”

On all fours he eased backward from his kill, keeping his gaze aimed at me. Calculations and decisions were running through it. Pinned to the spot merely by his look, I realized why some people freeze when confronted with a predator. The fear of a monster - the old prey-state - is activated when you see yourself through eyes that never forgot the wild. I realized what I must look like to his wolfish mind: a pretty young doe.

But in the end, he fled.

Fighting my own instincts, I gave chase, able to keep up with the improved reflexes of a Trion body. He kept ahead by slipping through holes and debris in the buildings as though he knew them with the intimacy of a feral cat, unaware that he bore a tracking chip.

The reason for wearing my Trigger in advance was the risk of being devoured myself, yet he ran, ignoring the lack of threat I made to his meal or his... person. Did he recognize me? Was the human still conscious underneath the wolf, and feeling guilty?

As I emerged from fallen planks of wood, Inukai vanished into an apartment building ahead, and my phone vibrated in my pocket. Normalcy intruded in the form of a text.

“Karin, what the heck?”

With everything save my lupine goal chased from my mind, I could only reply “I'm busy”, trying to recall what Momozono could mean.

“It's thirty minutes to showtime! Where are you?”

Right. “I won't be long. Trying to get ahold of my other color commentator.”

With that, I was in the darkness, my phone the only source of light in this mostly-intact building. I traced the walls and counter with the beam of my screen, creeping toward the stairs - when from the walkway behind me, over the entrance, I heard him.

Before I could turn he was already on my back, knocking me flat with his leap. My phone launched from my hand to land bright-side down. I could only hear the snarl in his throat--

I heard enamel breaking against my Trion body.

“Owwww.”

As his torso lifted I scrambled out from under him, hand soon landing on my phone.

Following the rules of inhuman animals I stood to make myself bigger while directing my light on the wolfman holding his jaw and blinking up against the sudden brightness. I only caught a brief glimpse of his face, but in that glimpse I saw the curse wearing off him, at least for now. His irises gradating back to their normal blue. A slice of abject terror profoundly new on his ever-smiling face, somehow even more unlike him than the wolf.

“Wait, Inukai!”

But he seemed not to have heard, or to still be too much under the influence, for he bolted again, lumbering like a canine not yet used to human legs.

By then I had to go running back to HQ myself. The sudden and relative success of my wolf hunt was soured by the waste and failure of my agent hunt. There wasn't enough time to keep this up. Nor to grab another commentator. I'd have to make do with just one.

* * *

Imagine my shock, then, when I made it to the commentator's station only just in time and found both my color commentators seated. Inukai, of course, behaved as if nothing happened, and the play-by-play went off without a hitch.

After the match, which barely impressed itself on my mind otherwise, I requested an audience with HQ Director Shinoda. He was as aware of the werewolf rumors as anyone else, but with his level head, I doubt he had lent them much credence. That my hunch of their merit proved true didn't make them sound less wild.

However, he was a man who could be trusted not to dismiss solid proof out of hand. He listened solemnly when I briefly explained my discovery: “There _is_ a werewolf, he _is_ in Border, and his name is Inukai Sumiharu.”

“Inukai? How do you know?”

I reached into my pocket and dropped indisputable evidence into his hand, gathered from the scene of my attack.

“The tooth will out.”

* * *

I should have been able to move on after that - this adding up to a minor fiasco all told - but the matter wasn't done unless I learned what would become of Inukai. Was he doomed to be a werewolf for the rest of his life? What could be done to leash him? Would he need to be... put down?

Fortunately for my restless mind, Mr. Shinoda summoned me in short order, the very next day. Having confirmed the veracity of the Forbidden Zone's personal werewolf, he sought details.

“And he didn't try to attack you until you cornered him?”

“That's right. ...Is there no cure?”

“There's a cure. As it turns out this is actually a fairly common disease in some Neighborhood nations; it's easy to treat if you have the funds to pay. That's the trouble. If Neighbors are going to start using germ warfare, our problems will only get worse.”

This was almost more-unwelcome news than a simple werewolf. New, foreign diseases running rampant in Mikado. I couldn't imagine.

“Well, for now, we'll have to treat the symptoms and hope that this turns out to be just an isolated incident. Thank you for your investigation.”

Though he sent me on my way and I chose to leave in a haze, part of me wished I'd stayed to ask for more of the facts I didn't think I wished to know. I started my investigation for the same reason as anyone does: to find an answer. My answer only gave me a bag of more questions. Worse ones, at that.

“Isolated incident?” That could only mean an accidental infection. If Inukai acquired a Neighbor illness, that means there could be others with the same - the carriers who brought it here may well be Away Mission squads, not saboteurs.

“Treat the symptoms”? Unless there were other means to calm down a werewolf, I could only think of one thing that would mean.

“Hey, Karin.”

Inukai caught up with me in the halls, clearing my haze. He may even have been lingering to talk to me. Although he didn't say it aloud, and he was otherwise back to taking very little seriously, his demeanor was slightly sheepish when he spoke, as if to say “Sorry for trying to tear out your neck.”

“Well, you got it done after all. You found the scary werewolf.” What on Earth was he doing? Trying to feel out if I was angry by gauging my reaction to his normal flippancy? “What's next for Yuitsuka Karin? Are you going to enter the paranormal detective business?”

“Why didn't you turn yourself in?”

“And get taken away and studied in a lab? No thanks. It's not like I killed any people.”

“You could have gotten shot. Or killed by any number of Trion Soldiers before anyone found you.”

At least he had to think about that one. Maybe it genuinely didn't occur to him, but I got the impression there's something he wasn't telling me.

Knowing him even to the extent I do, I almost suspected he had enjoyed being a wolf.

“Well, I wasn't, right? Anyway, I don't think I was wrong to try to hide it. The cure's going to be worse than the disease. What's going to happen to my face?” Yet the smile didn't leave it, and he winked. “I'll be unmarriageble in a month. The way I see it, you have to do the right thing, Yuitsuka.”

“As if. Ask them to aim for your gut instead.”

* * *

“...And this is the problem we have on our hands. Are you willing to do it?”

Kageura grinned immensely.

“So I get to punch him in the face when he goes wolf? Sounds good to me!”

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to do Katagiri Squad in such broad strokes/going lightly off their Room 303 personalities even though Karin seems quite different. If all this gets Jossed... you'll have to forgiiive meeee!


End file.
